Musings about Tradition in the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and an attempt to collect essays and articles which would appear in a Catholic press which exercised critical solidarity with the Hierarchy.

11 August 2007

More on how to protest! And we need a leader

.Two separate messages lead me to suggest that Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who is in charge of the Congregation for Bishops, is the man to complain to (as well as the Nuncio and Cardinal Levada, both of whom have formal responsibilities in this regard). I can't find an e-mail address for him, but a written letter, hundreds, thousands of written letters, might be a better way of waking the Vatican up anyway. Contact him at:

Palazzo della Congregazioni,00193 Roma,Piazza Pio XII, 10

(Cardinal Levada's address is:

Piazza del S. Uffizio, 11,00193 Roma)

It is intriguing that both messages referred to two members of the hierarchy whom Cardinal Re has serious concerns about, one of whom has been blogged about as having packed his books ready for Southwark, only to be rudely interrupted when Kevin McDonald received the appointment as Archbishop.

I asked Damian Thompson through his combox to take the lead in rallying Catholics on this subject: he skipped the question. We need a leader, who should be a lay person: we can't have priests attacking Bishops. (We shouldn't need to have lay people attacking Bishops, but the Bishops started it!) Any ideas? Any volunteers with adequate profile?

There is a real opportunity here, though one which I think the Holy Father may have anticipated: we need a new Archbishop of Westminster, and we need one who is not part of the current hierarchy, all of whom reflect the fads of 1970s seminaries.

2 comments:

I want bishop d'Arcy of Fort Wayne/South Bend, Indiana for our new Cardinal.stuff nationality, we need the best available candidate, and sure many are clamouring for Aidan Nichols , but the man is an academic; not a leader, he's an excutive officer , not the captain.

I too have asked Damian to continue the fight and not run away from it; but we have to be aware of the risk he's taking - Damian has many considerations and responsibilities, many people he wishes to protect, and axiomatically many enemies in the process, plus Damian has a conscience and authentically sincere scruples - the behemoth of the conference is devoid of such 'sentimentality' and has very few qualms sweeping aside any minor interference in its wake...

I too have my doubts that the wonderful Fr Aidan Nicholls could do what needs doing because he's an academic-but then there was that amazing academic who tried to retire a few years ago, you know the man Ratzinger by name :))I don't know...I still have doubts OTSoA like you.

I'm going to write with the quote about pro-lifers that is available from the 'look inside' bit of the book on Amazon-and I'm going to ask WHY?